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Tell me,
What is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
Welcome to San Francisco Psychotherapy Associates
Michael Griffith MFT and Frances Verrinder PhD MFT
We are a husband and wife psychotherapy practice in San Francisco with offices in Noe Valley and dowtown San Francisco.
 
Call us: Frances at (415) 647-3262 or Michael at (415) 546-6548
We specialize in Attachment based, body-centered psychotherapy with
- Individual adults
- Couples. We are experienced couple therapists, currently in the PACT (Psychobiological Attachment Couples Therapy) Level 11 advanced training with Stan Tatkin PsyD.
- Families. We prefer to see children with their parent(s) but we often see older teenagers by themselves.
- Step-couples and step-families.
Groups and workshops. We are currently offering our five-day experiential workshop Develop Your Romantic Intelligence at Esalen Institute Feb 12-17, 2011. For more information call us. To register go to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or call 831 667 3005. This a workshop designed for singles who want to develop their romantic relationship skills.
We also offer Developing Romantic Intelligence as an ongoing therapy group and as a weekend workshop in San Francisco. Our next scheduled weekend is April 13-15, 2012. Call 415 647 3262 for more information.
Our Approach
You will find us to be interactive and relational therapists. Our goal is to create a supportive and healing environment in which we explore and understand you and your world -- your relationship to yourself, your family of origin, your relational life with your partner (if you have one), your children or step children, your friendships, your work, and your creative life.
When we are hurt or frightened as children, we protect ourselves by organizing defensive patterns, constricting our breath, our bodies, our feelings and thoughts, our hopes and our dreams. These survival strategies safeguard us when we are young but they restrict our authentic, loving , spontaneous, pleasurable lives as adults, diminishing our relationships with ourselves, to others and the world.
Body-centered psychotherapy focuses on identifying and releasing our physical and emotional defenses, thus supporting the normal human tendency towards health, wholeness and integration - the fully experienced, alive and relational self. We utilize the therapueutic relationship to develop not just insight but to expand your "felt sense" of yourself. We work on the basics: the right to exist; identifying and dealing with emotions; allowing needs and expanding wants; feeling free to be yourself, learning to tolerate more pleasure, and most importantly we work on growing your capacity for love.
Our work draws extensively from Attachment theory, especially in our work with couples and families. We also integrate Gestalt, family systems theory, Expressive arts (play therapy, sand tray, art and psychodrama), and characterological approaches, creating a nourishing and restorative atmosphere, which cares for the whole person, the couple or the family in treatment. While many people report helpful insights from traditional talk therapy, they often find themselves ready for more dynamic, interactive and engaged work. |
